Arizona's 100th birthday should mean some presents

Here it is, the Big Day. Arizona is 100 years old, and I'm embarrassed to say it, but I haven't yet gotten her a birthday present.

This is, of course, inexcusable as I am like a lot of Arizonans -- not born of this soil but rooted to it.

I stepped onto the tarmac at Sky Harbor International Airport in March 1975, when I was a teenager. My father had been transferred from the Midwest to this faraway land called Arizona, and I came with him, to scout out the place before the rest of the family arrived.

I fell instantly in love. I don't know if it was the palm trees that swayed against a sky the color of a cornflower or the warmth of the sun that kissed my face the way it does in March, when much of the country is still making like a Popsicle.

There was just something about this place and the people who lived here. They had a certain spring in their step, an optimism in their outlook, as if they already knew what the rest of us would soon discover, that this place was special.

It is special still.

Oh, Arizona hasn't always lived up to its potential. There have been plenty of growing pains, a few scandals and some wild political showdowns that make the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral look like a pillow fight.

But Arizona -- the one I saw on that long ago March day -- endures. Gloriously beautiful, unapologetically optimistic and still, after 100 years of statehood, a thoroughly captivating work in progress.

Just think of the things this young state has already contributed to the nation: Barry Goldwater and Cesar Chavez. Sandra Day O'Connor and Steven Spielberg. Kool Deck and chimichangas and even a planet named Pluto, before it was kicked to the celestial curb a few years ago.

Tasers came from Arizona as did the right to remain silent (thank you, Ernesto Miranda).

The question is: What can we give back now as she celebrates this milestone birthday?

What gift can we offer the state that already boasts one of the seven natural wonders of the world and a few unnatural ones as well?

I thought about a padded room -- handy for housing the Arizona Legislature -- or an oven mitt for a certain governor and her nationally known finger.

I'm warming to the idea of giving Arizona open primaries. Surely if we dig through the scorched earth of today's politics we can find that elusive middle ground, where the good of the state trumps the purity of ideological argument.

If I could, I would give Arizona more rain, less heat and cheaper air-conditioning (OK, that last part was for me). I would give her better schools and more opportunities for her graduates to use that education. I would offer more support for small businesses and big ideas.

And I would give her the leadership she deserves, people with a passion for the land and the vision and intellect to grow this state well, as befitting a place that really could be heaven on Earth.

But I think the best gift that I, or any of us, can give her would be to simply remember what it was that drew us here or kept us here, if we were fortunate enough to be native-born. We should each consider how we might say thank you.

Nearly 101 years ago, former President Theodore Roosevelt predicted that we would come. It was March 1911, and he was in the Valley, having just returned from a trip to dedicate Roosevelt Dam. He had been awed by the natural beauty of this place, and he predicted that great things could be ahead for Arizona.

"I believe, as your irrigation projects are established, we will see 75 to 100,000 people here," he said while standing on the steps of Old Main at Tempe Normal School, now Arizona State University.

"It is one of the most fertile regions of the country. You have the great material chance ahead. You can throw it away if you have not the right kind of men and women."

As Arizona reaches the ripe young age of 100 -- with a population exceeding 6 million -- I think the best thing that we can give her is a pledge to be the right kind of men and women.